A diary of my experiences playing MMOs, with the occasional post about my personal life.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

March 25, 2010

Not a lot of major stuff has happened in the past week. Though there were a few notable things.

ShamanMy Shaman has been 80 for only 10 days and yet she already has several 232 to 245 ilvl items. Thanks to friends who have crafted things for me, patient PuGs who have helped me get triumph emblems, and patient guildies who have held alt runs through ToC.

Despite the gear, my DPS in raids is still quite low, compared to that of others. It's lower on raid bosses than it is on Heroic bosses. I think much of the problem is my unfamiliarity with how to melee properly. I know the DPS rotation/priority for enhancement shamans, it's just a matter of getting myself into the right position -- and most importantly, noticing when I'm not actually hitting anything. Honestly, that's one of my biggest problems. With all the flashes of spells going on around me, I sometimes lose sight of the fact that my UI is telling me that I'm too far away or that I'm faced the wrong way. I checked Skada (the replacement to Recount) and my miss rate on attacks is very low. So, it's definitely not that my hit rating is not high enough. It really is that I'm just not attacking because of positioning.

Oh and...sheesh! I never realized how many mobs do a push back effect. Jeezo! I think it's an overused mechanic. It's definitely worth having in the game. But, I can't tell you how much time I wasted running back to bosses after being knocked back. Now I understand why ranged DPS always rock the damage charts. On my mage and my priest, I just have to stand at max range and cast. Melee are constantly having to move.

Anyway...I'm having a blast, despite being disappointed with my DPS.

Paladin LevelingMy pally is lvl 72 now. But, more importantly, she's at 442 Blacksmithing. I've been gathering ore for her while sitting out on raids on my priest lately. This past Tuesday I sat out nearly the entire raid, so that was almost 3 hours of circling Icecrown, mining ore. Anyway...back to the pally. So, I'm pretty much going to stop there with Blacksmithing. My goal had been to get her to be the Eternal Belt Buckle producer of my toons. Maybe if I get to 80 on her and become motivated to equip her with epics, I'll look into maxing Blacksmithing and getting epic patterns.

MiscellaneousOn a personal note. Yesterday Ronnie tried to patch things up with Matt. Matt responded to her this morning, saying thanks, but no thanks. I can't blame Matt. Ronnie needs to just let it go.